Xie Zhixin, Page Lionel, Hardy Ben
Queensland Behavioral Economics Group, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
School of Finance and Management, SOAS University of London, London, United Kingdom.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2017 Dec 15;11:246. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00246. eCollection 2017.
There is a significant gender imbalance on financial trading floors. This motivated us to investigate gender differences in financial risk taking under pressure. We used a well-established approach from behavior economics to analyze a series of risky monetary choices by male and female participants with and without time pressure. We also used second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) and face width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as correlates of pre-natal exposure to testosterone. We constructed a structural model and estimated the participants' risk attitudes and probability perceptions via maximum likelihood estimation under both expected utility (EU) and rank-dependent utility (RDU) models. In line with existing research, we found that male participants are less risk averse and that the gender gap in risk attitudes increases under moderate time pressure. We found that female participants with lower 2D:4D ratios and higher fWHR are less risk averse in RDU estimates. Males with lower 2D:4D ratios were less risk averse in EU estimations, but more risk averse using RDU estimates. We also observe that men whose ratios indicate a greater prenatal exposure to testosterone exhibit a greater optimism and overestimation of small probabilities of success.
金融交易大厅存在显著的性别失衡现象。这促使我们去研究在压力下金融风险承担方面的性别差异。我们采用了行为经济学中一种成熟的方法，来分析有时间压力和无时间压力情况下男性和女性参与者的一系列有风险的货币选择。我们还使用食指与无名指比例（2D:4D）和面部宽高比（fWHR）作为产前睾酮暴露的相关指标。我们构建了一个结构模型，并在预期效用（EU）和等级依赖效用（RDU）模型下，通过最大似然估计来估计参与者的风险态度和概率认知。与现有研究一致，我们发现男性参与者的风险厌恶程度较低，并且在适度时间压力下，风险态度的性别差距会加大。我们发现，在RDU估计中，2D:4D比例较低且fWHR较高的女性参与者风险厌恶程度较低。在EU估计中，2D:4D比例较低的男性风险厌恶程度较低，但在使用RDU估计时则更厌恶风险。我们还观察到，那些比例表明产前睾酮暴露程度较高的男性表现出更大的乐观情绪，并且对小概率成功事件存在高估。
